People Who Aren't Us

by Riley Redgate

Almost two years ago, I was lucky enough to catch the show Seminar on Broadway. The show is brilliant as a whole and deals with a creative writing seminar taught by the crotchet-iest of professors. It is about many things, but one subplot that particularly stuck with me went something like this:

A girl writes a book. The crotchety professor takes one look at the first page and not only criticizes every facet of the main character, but implies that the girl herself is exactly like that main character. The girl protests, and she hypothesizes that the professor is only uninterested because of what she is like as a human being. So she writes pages and pretends they are autobiographical pages from a nonexistent friend, a gay illegal immigrant amputee from South America, rather than from her own head. Crotchety Professor Man gushes over them. She takes this as a victory at first, but comes to realize that the professor has won: he has forced her to stretch her comfort zone and write from the perspective of someone who is nothing like her, someone whose story is far more high-stakes and creative than her own hyper-personal story.

That's not to say that a narrative can't be utterly brilliant despite how "normal" or "underwhelming" it may seem on its surface: look at the simple, down-to-earth concept of Mrs. Dalloway. Also, the prospect of misrepresenting, and thus offending, an entire demographic of people—a different race; a different gender; a different sexuality—is horrifying and daunting in equal parts. But I think that as citizens of a larger world, we have a responsibility to write also about people who are utterly unlike us in race, gender, sexuality, background. This responsibility is not only to those demographic groups as people who deserve representation, but also to ourselves as human beings, in order to aim for a larger worldview and heightened empathy. The important thing is how to go about portraying those perspectives. I believe there are two vital points to keep in mind:

1) Research. Research trends and statistics and understand their implications—but dig deeper, too. If you're writing a character who lives in extreme urban poverty, for instance, look up as many stories as possible from people who have lived in urban poverty, and people who are still living that life. Individual stories can tell you so much more than percentages and overall trends and general impressions, than graduation rates and unemployment rates. Reading individual stories will help humanize the people you're writing.

Otherwise ... well, for instance, if you the author have always been well-off, patchy or solely-trends-based research means you may run the risk of your characters just having a thin veneer of Ideas About Poverty over a personality that is driven by deeply-ingrained patterns of behavior that you, the author, have had your whole life. Research conscientiously so you can write conscientiously about people who aren't you, who don't think like you, who have never thought like you and will never be anything like you. (I'd argue that playing at those opposite perspectives is half the fun.)

2) Implications. One of the issues with minorities in fiction is that minority depictions can easily be misinterpreted as being the author's concept of the minority as a whole. It's the same messed-up principle that drives society to demand that women answer for their gender as a whole—as in, if a man is bad at driving, he's a bad driver; if a woman is bad at driving, it's because women are bad at driving. When a person of a marginalized demographic appears in fiction, he, she, or they may be held up as an Example for that demographic, even if the author never intended that to be the case. Subsequently, it's often hard for the character to shrug off that stigma and be seen as a multifaceted human being rather than "the black character!" or "the gay character!" or "the fat character!" Which is, of course, all the more reason to include more of those marginalized characters, to be sure they're not being pigeonholed.

It would be lovely if this weren't an issue, and luckily the world seems to be veering toward a world where it's less of an issue, but as it is, we still have to be hyper-conscious of the implications of these depictions. And by "as it is", I mean, "as we are currently dealing with shameless whitewashing of major Hollywood films," or "as the number of LGBTQ characters in well-publicized lead roles is hovering around zero, except in films that are explicitly About Gayness And Being Gay," or "as the number of incidentally fat teenage girls in lead roles is also hovering around zero."

Both of these points are seemingly focused on inhibition. Research excessively. Fact-check constantly. Police yourself. That sounds unappealing, I know ... but when it comes to writing the unfamiliar, I truly believe this is the right approach. We live in a time where people, bizarrely, hilariously, have started talking about being politically correct like it's a bad thing. If me policing my portrayals is going to make a trans* person more comfortable with reading my writing, or is going to make it easier for people of color to read a piece I've written without feeling excluded, then yes, I'm willing to put in extra time and effort to be "politically correct." Frankly, I don't view it as "political correctness"—I view it as obsessive honesty, because writing any group of people into a tiny box of conceptions is dishonest, a slap in the face of realism. The real world is diverse, and huge, and to get a taste of that in fiction should be utterly normal, really, rather than a special feature.

Sure, there may be readers who couldn't care less about the so-called "P.C."—but I feel like if I'm writing for public consumption, that means I'm writing for the entire public. And that includes those who are easily offended. No, I don't believe authors can please everyone, but I definitely believe we can write fearlessly and push the envelope while still being careful enough not to hurt people. In my opinion, Chuck Wendig's blog, terribleminds.com, is a great example of this. He's "offensive" in the sense that he curses constantly and has a crude sense of humor, but I don't know anyone who has read his pieces and come away from them feeling like they've been targeted. I think the same is true of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. It offends sensibilities, but it doesn't offend people, not on a deep personal level.

I don't know how popular this opinion is; it's simply my own approach. I'd love to hear what your approach is, or your opinion!


Riley Redgate, enthusiast of all things YA, is a bookstore-and-Starbucks-dweller from North Carolina attending college in Ohio. She is represented by Caryn Wiseman of Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Sporadically and with occasional weirdness, she blogs here and speaks with considerably more brevity here.

Can't We All Just Get Along? (Books vs. Movies)

By Charlee Vale

It seems to me that lately, there have been an influx of book based movies hitting the theatre. As both a writer and an actress, this makes me immensely happy! But I know that others aren't as happy, especially when they see their favorite books 'ruined' by it being made into a movie.

As an example, I'll tell you about my experience seeing The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, this past week.

I went to a tiny theater near my house. It was a late showing, and there were only a few people waiting for the movie with me. Of these people, there was a group of teens, completely decked out in costume. They had every major character covered, we're talking dedication. I gathered from not-so-subtle eavesdropping and a little conversation, that they were overjoyed to be seeing the movie for the first time, some of them fans of the book since it first came out in 2007.

So we went in and watched the movie. (For the record, I really enjoyed it--and I recommend everyone see it) As soon as the credits rolled I looked over at the costumed group to gauge their reaction. They all seemed overwhelmingly confused and saddened. Not understanding 'what had just happened.' (This despite us talking about how books and movies have to be different before entering the theater)

While thinking about this, it occurred to me that in fact, many times I've known people who are 'okay with it being different from the book,' and then walk out of the movie furious for that same reason. This makes me sad, because hollywood is finally paying attention to books! Their making book movies! But if everyone keeps hating them, they'll stop.

As a person who crosses the book/movie world, I thought I'd talk about a couple of the reasons books and movies can't be the same, and why that's okay.

1. Length

The book you read was most likely in between 200-300 pages, maybe more. The standard rule of thumb in the movie industry for screenplays is 'a minute per page.' If movies literally took the book you read and put it on the screen, even the shortest books would be almost three hours long. (The City of Bones hardcover is 485 pages--an 8 hour movie!)

2. Investment vs. Payoff

Because the aforementioned problem with length, movie producers have to look at the story and what's going to be the best way to deliver the required information, and still keep the tone of the story. A good example of this is the Hunger Games movie.

For those of you who have both read the book and seen the movie, you know that the person who gives Katniss the Mockingjay pin is different. A lot of people were upset that in the movie 'Madge' was cut out as a character. However, the time the movie would have spent developing that character would have been wasted. Why? Because Madge does nothing else. In fact she has little presence through the entire series. So spending ten precious minutes of film time on a character that doesn't affect the audience, is silly. The payoff wasn't worth the investment.

3. Different Mediums

This should be fairly straight-forward, but I find it's always good to remind people that books and movies are different. And that's okay.

In books, we have the time to describe something, to let the mind piece together an image as it goes along. Movies, as a visual medium, have to give us things that our minds can both interpret immediately, keep us engaged, and keep the story moving.

This is why I find I enjoy book-to-movie adaptations much more the second time I watch them. The second time, I already know what's different from the book--there are no surprises. That way, I can relax and enjoy the movie for what it is. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people don't get that far because they're upset.


As a final note, I hope that you will go and support book movies. Even if the particular book isn't your thing. I would hate for Hollywood to think we're giving them a message to stop making these movies. There are so many wonderful book stories that can be told with film. Let's keep making it happen!


Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter, and at the movies, absorbing all the stories. 

Judging a Book by Its Cover

by J. Lea López

There isn't an author alive who hasn't heard "Don't judge a book by its cover." There also isn't an author alive who doesn't know that readers are judging books by their covers. You can probably point out a few different book cover clichés in your genre. If not, check out this list with 19 of them that you may have seen. Certain "typical" cover design elements can signal to the reader a great deal of information about the story. Usually, it's those elements and that conveyed information an author or publisher hopes will entice a reader to buy.

Sex sells ... or does it?
If you read romance, erotic romance, or erotica, you're well aware of some of the cover trends in those genres. If you're looking for a steamy read, books with covers featuring near-naked bodies are a sure bet. But while a "typical" cover may seem like a guaranteed way to attract "typical" fans of the genre, there's also the risk of deterring other potential readers.

Over the past couple weeks, I've been catching up on some ebooks I'd downloaded to my Kindle during various free promotions. I scrolled through the carousel on my Kindle Fire, which shows the book covers for the books on the device, trying to decide what to read next. I kept passing over one particular book because the cover gave me a certain impression that I wasn't interested in, even though I'd already downloaded the book. I often download books that I might otherwise feel meh about, if they're free. Don't judge me. I know you do it, too. So anyway, in the weeks since I'd downloaded the book, I kept passing it up and reading other things instead, based solely on the cover. I'd mostly forgotten the description by then.

The cover features the muscled torso of what we assume is an attractive man. We don't know, because the only parts of him we see are his pecs, abs, and arms. A woman's hands are groping him from behind. In the background is a cityscape as seen through the window of what we probably assume is a penthouse apartment.

Now let's not forget that I, and other readers, will bring our own reading baggage and preferences to the table when judging a book by its cover. It's inevitable. What I'm about to say may seem harsh, but it's the truth of what I was thinking at the time, and it may mirror the thoughts of other readers more than authors would care to think about. Here's what I was expecting from this book, based on the cover I just described:

A billionaire-themed steamy romance. Not particularly well-written. Probably will require a greater leap of faith to suspend my disbelief than I generally like in books. Most likely will cause me to roll my eyes or shake my head at what I see as utterly illogical leaps of plot or characterization, but that I could still see coming a mile away because I'd read three or four similar romances in the week prior that were scripted exactly the same way.

Not the most flattering picture, right? Still, I finally decided to read it. And something strange happened. I found myself smirking on the first page. Not because I was saying "I knew it. Mediocre at best." in my head, but because I was actually amused at the characters. Their personalities came through right away. The way they met and the details of their first interaction were fresh and fun and a little bit silly, and I absolutely loved it. And I found myself reading chapter after chapter because I wanted to, and not just because I told myself I had to.

Yes, it was a billionaire romance, which is something that has never really appealed to me. But that aspect of the story was treated in a way that made sense for the characters and added to my enjoyment most of the time. And yes, there were a few things that went the usual way seemingly because that's the way a romance should go, regardless of whether it was the way this particular story and these particular characters should have gone, given everything up to that point. Overall, I enjoyed the book. Writing about it now makes me want to go back and read it again, which says a lot.

But I almost didn't read it because of the cover.

I realized after reading it and revisiting the Amazon page that I had downloaded it in spite of the cover because the blurb was interesting AND it was free at the time. Once it was on my Kindle and I completely forgot what it was about, the cover really held me back from reading it sooner because it conveyed a type of book that I was not very interested in.

What does this mean for readers? Obviously, don't judge a book by its cover! But it's hard not to, and I don't think there will ever be a time where we don't judge books by their covers. Especially in an increasingly digital marketplace.

So, then. What does this mean for authors and publishers? I think it means we need to be a little more careful with the messages we choose to send with our book covers. This particular cover will attract quite a few readers who like to read certain things. I'm not denying that. But there's a potential market that it's probably missing as well.

I know we can't appeal to all readers all the time, nor should we try to. But I think there's a more nuanced balance between hitting your target market square between the eyes and roping in your target market without completely alienating readers who might really like what you're writing, but they just don't know it yet. Like me. I'd probably read this author again in the future, knowing that if she has a cover that would normally turn me off, there's likely a better story inside. (And if you're curious, the book I've been referring to is She's Got Dibs, by AJ Nuest. Check it out. Even if you don't like billionaire romances.)

What are some books you've read and enjoyed despite a cover that would've made you think otherwise?

J. Lea López is a shy, introverted writer with a secret world of snark and naughtiness inside her head. She writes character-driven erotica and contemporary new adult stories. Her first novel, Sorry's Not Enough, and her free short story collection, Consenting Adults, are available now. She'd love to tweet with you.

1 Piece of Advice 5 Ways

by Jemi Fraser

There is so much advice out there for aspiring writers it can sometimes be overwhelming. A lot of it can be boiled down to the same piece of advice given from different perspectives.

What's right for someone else may not be right for you

• Social Media
• There are about a bazillion options for social media interactions with more popping up all the time. You can't do them all - or at least I can't. You need to find which ones you enjoy and which ones make your skin itch. Pick and choose. Be selective. Don't join because 'everyone else is' or 'it works for everyone else'. It doesn't.

What's right for someone else may not be right for you

• Genre
• Write the stories you love. Write the ones in your heart. Of course you can keep a reasonable eye on the market and make some tweaks and twists, but if you're writing a genre you don't love, it will show. Don't worry about what's currently popular - by the time you're done and polished and ready to query that trend will probably be over. Create the next trend instead.

What's right for someone else may not be right for you

• Style
• Find your voice. Don't try to imitate your favourite authors. Be you. No one else can do it better. Warning: Finding your voice takes a lot of time and a lot of words. Be prepared.

What's right for someone else may not be right for you

• Promotion
• Don't piggyback on someone else's ideas. Sure, we all borrow bits and pieces, but find the promotion style that works for you. Decide what will work for you based on your comfort levels and your target audience.
• PLEASE don't fall victim to The Opera Disease.

What's right for someone else may not be right for you

• Your Journey
• A crit buddy signs with an agent after only 10 queries. A fellow blogger started writing 2 years after you and has pubbed 4 books already. A friend gets a 3 book deal with a big pub...
• Be happy & celebrate with them. Remember they're not you. Your Journey is uniquely You. Don't compare. Don't waste energy on jealousy (okay, go ahead, cry a bit and eat some Rolo ice cream. Then get over it). Your Journey is going exactly as it should be. Enjoy the journey because that IS the point.

Anything else you think that piece of advice might be good for?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of contemporary romance. She blogs and tweets while searching for those HEAs.

The Hard News

by S. L. Duncan

I remember starting out on this ridiculous publishing endeavor, the whole querying process lived on this binary of good news and bad news. And let’s face it; the news was mostly the latter. Yet there was some comfort in knowing that it was always going to be one or the other. You either got requests for a partial or full manuscript of your work, or you got rejected.

And then one day that good news leads to even better good news—the offer of representation.

I say I remember this feeling, like it was SOOOOO long ago, but really, as a published author, not much has changed. I still participate in this querying process, only this time my agent does the querying (though he has a cooler name for it—submitting), and for the most part, the results are the same. Either the editors like my work and offer a deal, or they reject it and no offer.

There is, however, a new dynamic—a third possible response, acknowledged usually with the help of your agent. I’ve been on submission for a new book for a few months now, the first round of what might be a hard sell. It’s a WWII middle grade book about a boy surviving the London Blitz with a future-predicting, haunted teddy bear. I was warned prior to submission that the historical elements and the more literary tone might make for a tough get. So when my agent sent me the compilation of the first round responses to his submission, I was prepared when there was not an offer on the table.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the uniformity of the responses—all 12 of the 14 that bothered to respond nearly said the exact same thing, and it was mostly positive. What they loved and what they gravitated toward is what we thought they’d hate—the historical setting. So what went wrong? Why didn't they offer a deal? This is a bit hard to admit publicly, but here you go:

Nobody connected with the main character.

Ouch.

So, here’s where that new dynamic comes in: The Hard News. A good agent, much like the one I’ve got, wears multiple hats. The one you want him or her to wear in this situation is the psychologist hat. There is plenty of advice my agent gives based on his experience, but he doesn’t give me the answer—he asks what I think is the answer. Can’t you just imagine me, on the leather-bound couch, my agent sitting in the chair beside me, pen and pencil in his hand, checking his watch for how much of the hour is left? Lose the furniture and the impatience, and that’s just about what we’ve got—him on the phone asking, “What do you think you should do?”

This is where I am right now—holding neither good nor bad news. Just hard news. Hard because I know it’s true and it will take a grand effort to basically start over. Hard because it would be so easy to say everyone else is wrong and set out again on another round of submissions. Heck, I might even land a deal. Deep down, though, I’d know those original editors were right; that the work and effort I’d put into writing and mastering that book was flawed, and in a big way.

So be prepared for Hard News to come with the good and the bad. Because while it’s a hard thing to accept that you’re wrong about something, it’s an even harder thing to do something about it. And who knows? With a little effort, it might just be Good News in disguise.

S. L. Duncan writes young adult fiction, including his debut, the first book in The Revelation Saga, due in 2014 from Medallion Press. You can find him blogging on INKROCK.com and on Twitter.

Who Do You Think You Are?

by Matt Sinclair

Can a man accurately write a story from a woman’s perspective? Can a woman write in a man’s voice? Can a 20-something Asian American who’s lived in the Northeast all his life write about being a black blues musician from the south? Can a Christian academic write about the tenets of Islam? Can a Muslim write about the politics of Jesus?

In my opinion, the answer to all these questions is yes. Of course, those answers come with at least a couple caveats: Such writers must do their research thoroughly, and they not only need to be excellent writers but also confident that they’ve approached their goal with respect.

Writing about people we are not is one of the joys of writing fiction. In its purest form, it is imagination; to be publishable, it must be informed imagination.

I recall starting a novel too soon. I had a vision of the characters, but before I’d finished my first page, I could see that my understanding was superficial. What did I know about being in my 70s or 80s and looking back on life? About as much as I knew about living and working in Antarctica, which was where part of my story would take place. It was years of research before I felt confident to start telling the tale of those characters, and I still need to do more research.

Of course, most of that research won’t make it directly on the page. Instead it comes through between the lines—in the words chosen and the attitudes conveyed.

In my opinion, it’s not merely about showing respect to the subject matter, which is critical, but it’s also about respecting the readers. We need to always remember that readers are perceptive. Tell an entertaining tale and readers might say nice things about your book, but if you expect them to suspend disbelief, to leave their real world behind for your imagined one, you need to do your homework. Of course, this might explain why so many writers’ early novels seem to be autobiographical.

But you’re writing something original, right? How would your main character react if someone cut him off on the road, or tripped her at a restaurant? These things don’t happen in your manuscript? Doesn’t matter. What I’m getting at is how well do you know your characters and how they’d react to adversity. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a lapsed Catholic writing about a Sephardic Jewish family or a guy from suburban New Jersey writing about a girl living in rural Iowa. But the identity of the writer and the identity of the characters do matter to readers.

From the first time your manuscript crosses an agent’s desktop, it needs convey an answer to the question that will be on every reader’s mind: Who is this writer and why should I believe what is in front of me?

Who do you think you are? I hope you’re not only an author, you’re also a believable and authentic authority.

Matt Sinclair, a New York City-based journalist and fiction writer, is also president and chief elephant officer of Elephant's Bookshelf Press, which recently published Summer's Edge and Summer's Double Edge, which are available through Smashwords (SE) (SDE) and Amazon (SE) (SDE), and include stories from several FTWA writers. In 2012, EBP published its initial anthologies: The Fall: Tales from the Apocalypse, (available viaAmazon and Smashwords) and Spring Fevers (also available through Smashwords, andAmazon). Matt blogs at the Elephant's Bookshelf and is on Twitter @elephantguy68.

Tic Toc

by Riley Redgate

The other day, I was strolling through Goodreads when I encountered a review that stopped me in my virtual tracks. I don't remember what book it was for, so I can't find it again and thus the specifics here are invented, but in essence, it said this:

"This book used the phrase "blue eyes" seventy-eight times. Seventy-eight. Yes, we get it, the love interest's eyes are frickin' blue!"

Nervous laughter. This is a new era, everyone. With the advent of the search feature on eBooks, readers can now see exactly how much of a crutch your crutch words are.

One of the most disheartening (yet strangely hilarious!) writing things I've ever done is a control-F search for the word "and," which led me to realize that numerically, "and" comprises 2 percent of my entire manuscript. Amusing. Less so when it's a reviewer realizing that your work has a reliance on certain phrases.

I've always wondered why writer's tics exist. One hypothesis I've come up with is that it's something in our minds trying to fix the disparity between our character's voice and our own voice. Like, in reality, I actually do just use some words so very often: "like," "actually," "just," "so," and "very." ... Hang on.

Another guess of mine is that we have lingering initial concepts of people, places, or things in our manuscripts that haven't been fully fleshed out. I've often found that, sadly, an author's fixation on a character's particular physical characteristic can become a (poor) substitute for that character having an actual personality. For example, instead of deepening and fleshing out a character's humanity, she gets a "blue-eyes" tag and that makes her familiar to a reader in an easy, superficial way. A character's voice is repeatedly described as "husky" because that's how he first came to the author, in a snatch of a husky-sounding voice. A flag is repeatedly described as tattered and worn because that's how the author first saw it in their mind's eye. It betrays something never having left the conceptual stage.

Another guess: casual padding. My tics, especially the ones listed above, are irritatingly common words like "just" and "so," and I share these tics with a lot of folks out there. The sheer quantity of them is staggering and often hard to notice -- you have to use the ctrl-F laser-pointer to see, "Welp, okay, I've used "just" 834 times in this manuscript. Great." I'd hazard a guess that the reason they're harder to notice is the reason they're there in the first place -- they're placeholders. Empty calories. They delay the point of the sentence, and they do it sneakily. Eyes brush over them.

Of course, reviewers' eyes tend to be more discerning than an author's. And now, if someone starts noticing your egregious excess of "blue-eyes" descriptions, there's nothing stopping them from telling the whole world how repetitive your writing got, quantitatively.

This is terrifying to me. Terrifying. Of course, it's also Capital-A Awesome. Honestly, in my eyes, anything that holds authors accountable for the quality of their prose is an Awesome development, given our hyper-commercial day and age, where The Quality Threshold seems to be transforming -- more and more -- into The Purchasing Threshold. That is to say, the question starts changing from "how perfect can this be?" to "how perfect does this have to be for people to buy it?"

As with any issue of Awesomeness, though, I'm torn. On the one hand, yes, I absolutely believe it's great that authors have more cause than ever to worry about their writing getting lazy. Keeps you on your toes; keeps you striving for excellence! On the other hand, there's a point at which pulling out numbers gets arbitrary. Another review I saw that listed crutch phrases said that one of these 'crutches' showed up four times. Honestly, in a novel-length work, four of a phrase doesn't seem like a great deal to me (unless the phrase is something like "alarming proclivity to waterski spontaneously!", which ... um, it wasn't).

In any case, I'm sure if I'd been reading the book, I wouldn't have noticed those three repeat phrases, and I feel like the practice of breaking books down by numbers -- if it indeed becomes a 'practice' -- creates a risk of veering into semantics. I mean, come on: if you ctrl-F your way through the classics, I bet you'll find repetitions, some unintentional. Authors pre-1950, after all, didn't have the luxury of finding every instance of their crutches electronically in a fraction of a second. And while it's now simple to find the flaws of a book by the numbers, I certainly hope that doesn't become our default mode as readers. I hope that collectively, readers still hunt first for the beautiful and the unexpected within a book rather than the failed and the recycled.

Riley Redgate, enthusiast of all things YA, is a bookstore-and-Starbucks-dweller from North Carolina attending college in Ohio. She is represented by Caryn Wiseman of Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Sporadically and with occasional weirdness, she blogs here and speaks with considerably more brevity here.

LOUD NOISES! Should We Scrap the Caps?

by Mindy McGinnis

As I was recently typing up a letter to promote NOT A DROP TO DRINK to public libraries in Ohio, I made the super-duper mistake of not having my critique partner look it over before printing out 250 copies. That was a big oops, and more details can be found here. After coming to my senses and having R.C. Lewis take a look at everything, she pointed out something that technically isn't wrong... but to some people might seem not quite right.

It seems that pretty much everyone in the industry uses ALL CAPS when typing a title. I see it in emails from my editor, my agent, and fellow authors as well. Putting the title in CAPS is pretty much the norm for us, and I don't give it a second thought when hitting the Caps Lock key. What I don't think about is how people outside the industry might perceive that choice.

R.C.'s comment made me think back to when I first started rollicking around writer's sites and blogs. I remember seeing people putting their own titles in CAPS and thinking, "Geez, really?" It seems almost pretentious to wholly capitalize your own title. What are you trying to prove? What are you saying? Do you think this makes your title stand out from the rest of the text? Is this a marketing move?

Years of absorbing the culture now has me capitalizing myself all over the place, which no one seems to mind. Yet, what will someone on the outside think if they get a promotional letter from me in which it seems that I'm SCREAMING MY TITLE INTO THEIR FACE? Will they think I'm pretentious? Bold? Full of myself? Will they know that this is just how it's done?

I'm not sure. I'm so unsure of how this would be perceived by those outside of publishing that I took R.C.'s advice and decided to italicize my title in the promotional letter.

What do you think? Is ALL CAPS abrasive, or is this something even people outside of the industry take in stride?

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, Not a Drop to Drink, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / HarperCollins September 24, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13, The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.

In Defense of Present Tense

by R.C. Lewis

I recently heard a person with a considerable amount of authority state that writing a story in first person is a terrible idea, shouldn't be done, and that writing it in present tense is even worse. It's his opinion, and he's entitled to it, but I disagree. I'm tackling the first-person aspect over on my blog (web host is having issues, so I've cross-posted to my old blog), so I want to focus here on the idea of present tense. (And I'm mostly going to assume we're discussing present tense within first-person POV, because third-person present is a whole different puzzle.)

One argument against present tense is that it's unnatural to us in the English language. We don't tend to use it much in our speech.

(Except some people do relate anecdotes that way—it's their style—and what are anecdotes except telling a story? But anyway...)

I have a couple of issues with that argument. First, spoken language and written language are not the same thing. Spoken is a primary form while written is a secondary form. The way we speak has never been fully reflected in the way we write, and vice versa. Even written dialogue should only feel like a realistic depiction of speech, not actually be an accurate, true-to-life representation. So why would my use or non-use of spoken present tense have any bearing on whether writing a story in it is appropriate?

Second, of course we don't use (spoken) present tense the way we do in written stories, because we don't narrate life as it's happening. (At least, most of us don't. And I might be a little concerned about anyone who does.)

"Then why is your protagonist narrating their life as it happens?" you may ask. "Isn't that just as ridiculous?"

In my opinion, no. It isn't. Because when I read, I don't process it as the character telling me the story. To me, the story simply happens, and the narration is a construct to deliver that thing called "story" to my brain. I don't generally feel like the character/narrator is talking at me—they're just living the story.

Of course, I understand this is a particular philosophy and approach to reading—one I know plenty of people don't share in, and one which I discuss a bit more in the first-person post.

All that said, I'll make some concessions. The first time I read a novel written in present tense, it was awkward. I wasn't used to it, and almost every sentence felt strange. But not being used to something doesn't automatically make it wrong. Little kids just learning to read aren't used to sentences that don't follow simple subject-verb-object structure. The first time they encounter a sentence like the one I'm writing right now, they might feel very awkward indeed. You get used to it. In fact, the only time I seem to notice present tense anymore is when it's done badly. Which brings me to ...

... Sometimes it's done badly.

Present tense is tricky. You can't note or reflect on anything until it comes into the sphere of your POV character's perceptions. I once changed some material from past to present and discovered I had to shuffle sentences around in a paragraph to make things work. And sometimes a story (or even a voice or style) doesn't really seem to support the choice for present tense.

So why use it? What do we gain?

Some say immediacy. That can be true, but I've read things in past tense that seemed to have just as much immediacy. The difference with past tense is that it's a bit easier to ease off the immediacy when it's not needed. If present tense truly creates immediacy by its very nature, then that immediacy will be much more constant throughout the story. And I think that's probably what I mean by stories that do or don't support use of present tense—some stories can handle that immediacy better than others.

Don't use present tense just because The Hunger Games did.

There's also a distinction between past and present that hits me more subconsciously as a reader. If I read a story in past tense, I don't actively think about it, but there may be a feeling deep down that the character knows what's going to happen in the next paragraph, next chapter. Not always—skillful writers still manage to keep the suspense level high when they want to—but sometimes. (Then there are the blatant cases, ending a chapter with "That was the last time I saw my father alive.")

With present tense, we make all discoveries at the same time as the character. Their problems are exactly as big as they seem, with no hindsight to put them in perspective. That can be a good thing.

Every tool has a use. We just have to make sure we use them all mindfully and correctly.

Do you have opinions on present tense—for OR against? Love it? Hate it? Why? Please share (respectfully!) in the comments.

R.C. Lewis teaches math to teenagers—sometimes in sign language, sometimes not—so whether she's a science geek or a bookworm depends on when you look. That may explain why her characters don't like to be pigeonholed. Her debut novel Stitching Snow (which is in first person, but past tense) is coming from Disney-Hyperion in 2014. You can find R.C. on Twitter (@RC_Lewis) and at her website.

Know Your Genre (PLEASE)

by Charlee Vale

I'm going to say something that will sound incredibly obvious, but based on my recent observations needs to be said.

If you are going to be writing books, you need to be reading books.

Seems fairly simple, right? I mean, when we want to study something, we generally read books on the subject. Math, science, painting, knitting, music, cooking, basket-weaving—WHATEVER. If you're serious about a subject, odds are you'll have either bought a book about it, gotten one from the library, borrowed one, or at least attempted to read one in the bookstore while you're waiting for a table at the cafe.

So why is it that people think they can write without reading?

I know this is a very large generalization. I apologize, because I know there a lot of people who don't do this. However, in the past month online, I have seen a huge influx of questions by writers—questions that would have painfully obvious answers if they were reading in their genre.

I see most of this happening with YA. People pop up with questions along the lines of 'Is it all right if my characters drink/smoke/do drugs/have sex in YA?' or 'I know I'm targeting this at young people, what exactly is acceptable here?'

At this point, those of us who write YA, and have read more books than we can count in the category, give each other exasperated looks. Because if you have read any number of YA books (even 10, even 5), you would most likely know that these things are okay.

This is the case with any genre. If you want to write it, you should read it. It's like doing research on your next basket-weaving project; you need to do research so that you know what you're doing when you set out to accomplish your task. I recommend reading 50-100 books in the genre you write, at least. This will teach you the rules for what's acceptable, what's expected, what is good form and what is bad. (Plus, if you find out you don't enjoy the genre that you're reading, then why are you writing it?)

Read, read, read. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble, a lot of mistakes, and a lot of headaches.

Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter, and most likely with her nose in a book. 

Revising with Scrivener!

by MarcyKate Connolly

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably caught on to the fact that I’m something of a Scrivenervangelist. I LOVE IT. It revolutionized my writing life in so many ways, but in particular, it streamlined and organized the way I revise.

So when I hear people on Twitter say things like, “Oh I love Scrivener for drafting, but I still revise in Word,” it Boggles. My. Mind.

And since I’ve been seeing this a lot lately, I thought I’d share with you lovely readers how I use Scrivener to revise.

When I get notes back from beta readers (or an editorial letter!), I divide them up into two buckets: Things Run Throughout the Book and Things That are Scene/Chapter Specific. (Lucky for me, my editor actually writes editorial letters like this, which is just one of many reasons why she’s awesome!) After reading them over, sleeping on them (not literally – you might get a paper cut!), and reading them again until they’re imprinted on my brain, I open up my Scrivener file.

Project Notes & Document Notes Feature

My favorite part of revising with Scrivener is the notes feature on the sidebar (on the right-hand side, under the Synopsis and General Meta-Data). You can toggle between Project Notes and Document Notes. 

Here’s why I love them:

Project Notes 

• Used to track larger scope edits such as themes or threads that run throughout and need to be beefed up. If you have the Notes toggled to "Project," they will show up regardless of what scene you are on in the manuscript. 
• Example: Good for when you need to add a character/theme, or add/remove a plot thread.

Document Notes

• Used for individual scrivenings (that’s the official name of the text files in Scrivener) and notes specific to each chapter or scene. If you have the Notes toggled to "Document," they will change depending on what scene you are viewing. 
• Example: I pasted the relevant notes from my edit letter for each chapter here

Why They Rock

• Insta-reminder of what needs fixing that is constantly in your line of vision
• Easy way to keep your revisions organized, so you don’t have to keep referring back to other documents. 
• Easy to implement color coding for specific themes and such if you're just doing a read-through to plot out revisions.

Split Screen Feature

But wait! There’s MOAR :) Another awesome tool is the split screen feature. This is located right above the ruler and next to the sidebar.
You can split between two scrivenings vertically or horizontally. It comes in handy for moving pieces from one scene to another, or keeping a particular scene in mind that impacts the one you’re currently revising. It’s also very good for those unfortunate times when you need to rewrite a scene from scratch but want to reference the original. And if you store research or inspiration in your Scrivener file too, it’s a great way to keep those things easily at hand for reference.

Status Selection

A neat way to keep track of where you are in revisions and what pieces need work, is to use the Status flags. These can be adjusted either under the General Meta-Data in the main drafting view or on the notecards view (right click on the Note card, scroll down to Status, and select the appropriate one). Scrivener comes with several default Statuses, but I like to add my own so I know where it is in the process. For example, I’ll label a scene I know needs work as "To Do," and the one I’ve gone over twice already as "Edited Draft." If I have to draft a new scene, I’ll flag it as "New Draft" so I know that while it’s complete, it will need some polishing.  And I must say, there’s great satisfaction to be had at changing a scene’s status to “Final Draft.”

And one last tip: you can keep a running “Cut Scenes” folder in your Scrivener Doc so all those little bits and bobs you love, but have to cut, are easily accessible in case you want to recycle them elsewhere.

While there are, I’m sure, about as many ways to use Scrivener to revise as there are people, these are things I personally find particularly useful.  Do you use Scrivener? If so, please share your tips in the comments!

MarcyKate Connolly writes middle grade and young adult fiction and becomes a superhero when sufficiently caffeinated. When earthbound, she blogs at her website and spends far too much time babbling on Twitter. Her debut upper MG fantasy novel, MONSTROUS, will be out from HarperCollins Children's Books in Winter 2015.

Tell me now!

by Brighton Luke

It invariably happens that whenever I try to watch a movie I’ve seen before with someone who hasn’t, they pepper me with questions about what is going on, what is going to happen and where they’ve seen that vaguely familiar looking actor before. (This rarely happens with books, mostly because the avid readers I know will cut you if you interrupt them while reading, so I tend not to be close enough to anyone reading for them to ask me anything.) Recently while watching a movie with a friend, she was glued to her seat and watching very intently, suspense was high, so high that she started asking me a bunch of questions. She begged me to know who was gonna die (it was very obvious something was about to go horribly wrong, but no idea what or who). When I answered her questions she visibly relaxed, then got up and made herself an ice cream sundae, eventually coming back in and proceeded to surf the net while half watching the movie.

I killed the movie for her. Then this past week I was watching the same movie with another friend (I’m gonna plead the fifth on which movie I watch so frequently, bonus points if anyone can guess though.) She also started asking me a bunch of the same questions, (all ones that eventually get answered in the movie except for if the mother had been in an episode of Will & Grace, she had) and I knew better now than to give anything away. She was very annoyed with me, but stayed invested in the movie. When the climax of the film happened and all was revealed her tear-filled eyes were riveted to the screen rather than cleaning up the ice cream sundae she spilled over the phone she’d been perusing Reddit on when the supposed gunshot/hammer crack in the movie she was only half watching startled her.

The when, where, and how of dispersing needed information in your writing is a key skill. Not enough information and your audience will be frustrated. You eventually have to give them the goods and reveal the secrets, but if you do it too soon then those secrets will not have the right impact. By the end of the movie both friends knew who died, who went to jail and who just wandered around aimlessly on a pier, but one of them had an emotional reaction; the other one had a sticky phone. The same information had vastly different impacts based on when and how they found it out.

You can’t help it if someone’s friend gives away all the secrets in your book beforehand, but you can help it if you do as the writer. Take the time to look at all the vital moments and information in your novel and figure out when each piece will have the most impact, and see if you have it all in the right place to deliver that impact. The order in which things happen and are revealed will greatly affect how the otherwise same exact story is received by readers, and how emotionally invested they will be in it.

Brighton is a movie-fiend who's learned his lesson about spoiling films for friends—even Jennifer Connelly movies, all of which he's seen more times than the rest of humanity combined. You can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and motivating the procrastinators of the writing world here.

Writing for the Senses

by Charlee Vale

Everything in our life is interpreted by our senses. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. Sense of time. Sense of distance. I would even argue that our emotions are a kind of sense—interpreting to us our state of being. How else could we perceive them?

The magical and wonderful tool that is our brain integrates all of these senses so seamlessly that we barely even notice the differences between one and another sometimes. It's just a part of being.

I don't know about you, but when I'm going along in my daily life, I don't, generally, narrate to myself what I'm feeling with my senses—I say generally, because there are some times when we do do this. We'll say, "Man it's hot!" or "I smell popcorn,"—but for the most part we don't.

There have been many times I have found while reading books, (and definitely in my own work, I am equally guilty) that most of the time things are described fairly intellectually. The character notes what they see, how they feel, what they are thinking. It's like reading a transcript of someone's experience rather than experiencing it with them.

This post came about while I was chatting with a friend about writing an action scene. She expressed concern that she felt she was using words/phrases like 'suddenly' and 'without warning' too much to indicate the pace and flurry of the scene. I told her she needed to focus on writing for the senses, but she didn't know what I meant.

Here's what I mean, and to illustrate, we have a little quiz!

If someone unexpectedly shoots a gun near you do you:

A. Think "That was a gunshot."

B. Duck.

If you stub your toe in the middle of the night do you:

A. Think about the fact that you stubbed your toe, acknowledge how much it hurts, and then hobble off for ice.

B. Grab your foot while shouting obscenities because it feels like you just broke your toe. Geeze, what did I hit with my foot?

If a person you are not attracted to tries to kiss you do you:

A. Analyze their approach and how repellent they are until they're so close you can barely avoid the kiss.

B. Push them away/step away immediately.

If you answered B to every single question, congratulations, you are CORRECT! (And the other good news is you are not a robot. Good for you.)

So if in real life, all of us would react with option B, then why do so many of our characters react like option A?

I find this very prevalent in action scenes, characters analyzing and absorbing far more of the scene around them than is physically possible. To a degree that's fine, we are after all telling a story. But part of telling a story is to make sure your audience is there.

I don't have any easy solutions for this other than awareness.

• When you read, look for both good and bad examples, and see how you can either emulate or avoid those passages.
• When you write, be aware of how your character is moving through the world, and how their senses are reacting. Is your character hot? Then don't say they're hot—say they're sweating. Are they sleepy? Look for how sleepiness affects the body and implement that.
• Trust your audience. The people who are reading your books are human. They have senses. Odds are they know the signs you're describing. Trust that you don't have to dictate cognitive thoughts for every sensation. Don't worry—we'll get it.

Remember Newton's Law—Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So let them react!

Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter, and quite possibly trying to revise a new and crazy story.

Super Cool!

by Matt Sinclair

“Super cool!”

It was a phrase I’d never heard my four-year-old daughter say before. I have no idea where she heard it. She jumped in place for a couple seconds, then zipped around the kitchen while I tried to put groceries away. She was a distraction to say the least, but I think her joy was easily the most thrilling distraction I’d had in months, if not years.

What was the reason for her excitement? We weren’t going anywhere special for vacation. I hadn’t bought her favorite meal for dinner. I hadn’t even given her a kiss on the forehead yet – not that it would have caused her to jump for joy; the girl won’t even talk to me on the phone.

No, this was the joy of Daddy arriving with new books to read.

I’d called from the library to determine which Berenstain Bears stories she had her heart set on. We were limited to two, however, since the series is on her school’s summer reading list – a list she has no idea exists, mind you. The ones she really wanted weren’t available. But when I arrived home with books, she danced and screamed and jumped and ran. I dare you to keep up with a happy four-year-old.

I don't when I last felt such joy over a book. Elephant’s Bookshelf Press just released our latest anthologies, and I’m certainly happy about both Summer’s Edge and Summer’s Double Edge, but as I pressed "publish" on the computer screen, I told my wife that it was happening. I did not jump in place. Granted, the corners of my mouth probably rose.

But I can’t get the image out of my mind: the sheer honest joy. New books! Super cool!

Matt Sinclair, a New York City-based journalist and fiction writer, is also president and chief elephant officer of Elephant's Bookshelf Press, which recently published Summer's Edge and Summer's Double Edge, which are available through Smashwords (SE) (SDE) and Amazon (SE) (SDE), and include stories from several FTWA writers. In 2012, EBP published its initial anthologies: The Fall: Tales from the Apocalypse, (available via Amazon and Smashwords) and Spring Fevers (also available through Smashwords, and Amazon). Matt blogs at the Elephant's Bookshelf and is on Twitter @elephantguy68

THE CUCKOO'S STALLING

by S. L. Duncan

This week, Robert Galbraith was revealed to be a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling, the true author of THE CUCKOO’S CALLING, a book that ‘debuted’ with Little Brown’s Mulholland Books on April 30^th, 2013.

Until the unmasking, the book had sold a mere 1500 copies. Decidedly bad news for any book at a big publisher.

Apparently THE SUNDAY TIMES of LONDON, which must have reporters lining its halls, begging for stories to report, decided to investigate how a debut novel could have been so confidently written and broke the story. Starred, for instance, and quite gloriously, by Publisher’s Weekly, which insists of its ignorance about the whole ruse. A careful trail of not-so-loosely connected evidence sent our intrepid reporter bounding through London (did Dan Brown just roll his eyes?) back to Little, Brown, where it was discovered that the editor of THE CUCKOO’S CALLING was, coincidentally, the same editor of THE CAUSAL VACANCY, Rowling's other Little Brown novel. Of course, there are no coincidences, and this great mystery ended with the revelation of the Harry Potter scribe as the author beneath the cloak of invisibility.

Now, whether or not you believe this all seems a bit too good to be true, what does seem to be honest is how the book performed on the market without a big name to push sales. It is true the book received good reviews. And a star from PW always helps to sell books. Yet, at the end of the day, the book only sold 1500 copies. Or 499, if we’re going by Neilsen Bookscan.

After the revelation? THE CUCOO’S CALLING sits at#1 on nearly every book list out there.

What we’ve just been subjected to is an amazing experiment for the publishing industry. The Debut vs. The Name (where quality of the story and writing are equal). And it seems there is an amazing separation of the two. Take note, because if you are a debut author, this is the hill you’re climbing. You could write like J. K. Rowling – hell, you could be J. K. Rowling – and regardless of your talent, or the brilliance of your tale, you may be happy to get 1500 copies of your book out the door.

So without a name to rely on – and something tells me “Robert Galbraith” wasn’t exactly making the blog rounds – it falls back to us as the author to build a voice for our books on the market. Publishing, it seems, is a slow handshake. A molasses introduction to win readers over and gain their trust, until one day they can just look at your name and know yours is a book they’d like to read.

What does remain constant, debut or superstar (and everywhere in between), is the need for quality in the work. So write hard, friends, and pay attention to all the wonderful advice on this blog about what you can do to make your work stand out.

And if all else fails, legally change your name to Stephen King or something.*

*That’s probably bad advice.  

S. L. Duncan writes young adult fiction, including his debut, the first book in The Revelation Saga, due in 2014 from Medallion Press. You can find him blogging onINKROCK.com and on Twitter.

Be Like Nike—Just Do It

By Charlee Vale

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to write about today, and on the suggestion of our own R.C. Lewis, I'm writing about what's most on my mind about the writing process at the moment. I hope you'll find these wandering thoughts helpful.

If you're one of my Critique Partners, you've probably heard the title of this post from me. Probably more than once. It's a favorite phrase of mine when trying to get people past their fears to doing actual writing.

I'm here to talk about a slippery thing today, and something I'm currently struggling with: motivation.

The reason it's slippery is because it always seems to pop up at the most inconvenient times. When you have time to write isn't the time you'll want to. No, the time you'll want to is when you're the busiest and won't be able to. Isn't that the way of Murphy's law?

But what about when you do have the time? When you have those precious hours of free time and you can write. But there's also a new episode of Game of Thrones calling your name, or possibly new music, maybe a TV movie (Like the ever popular SyFy hit SHARKNADO).

Here's the truth: Writing books is hard.

Of course it is, Charlee. We already knew that!—I know you did, but let me say it again. Writing books is damn hard. Finishing books is hard. Sometimes just sitting down to the computer or picking up your notebook will be the hardest thing you'll ever do. But if you want to write, you've still got to do it.

Whatever you need to do for motivation, do it. Find a way that works for you. If you need to make sure you have a dessert-like treat after a set word count, make sure you stock up on cupcakes or candy.

If you're a visual person like me, you may need to find a way to chart your progress so that you can see your novel grow as you write.

Give yourself a time limit to write certain amounts of words, do writing sprints with friends. Be strict about it and make sure that you can both stretch yourself and accomplish your goal. Don't cave just because it's hard.

The number one thing I can tell you about writing, is the AIC factor. That is Ass-In-Chair. Putting in the time to write your book is the only thing that will get it done. It won't write itself. Don't wait for a magical bolt of inspiration to come to you to write, just write. If you do it long enough, something will come.

Whatever stage of the process you're in—drafting, revisions, polishing, querying. Nothing substitues for cold hard time. That may take some sacrifices, it may not, but don't wait for something to happen without you. Make the choice to sit in the chair every day. It's all any of can ever do.

Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter, and sitting in her incredibly comfy office chair...drafting. 

Why Networking Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To You ... If You Bothered

by Mindy McGinnis

Present Mindy sometimes gets really frustrated with Past Mindy, because Past Mindy was kind of an ass. You know the type—convinced of their genius, confident they're the next big thing, ready to knock over old ladies and eat puppies if that's what it takes.

Except I would never eat a puppy.

In any case, Past Mindy made a big mistake—she was only interested in people above her in the pecking order, people that could actually get her places. Past Mindy wasn't interested in joining writers' communities and hob-nobbing with people on the same level as her. Why would she be? They can't help. They aren't in positions of power.

This is part of the reason Past Mindy was never published.

Present Mindy realized after ten years of rejection that maybe she wasn't so awesome (130 form rejections on a single manuscript had a hand in that) and decided that maybe it wouldn't hurt to talk to some of the other people hanging out in the query trenches, and see what they had to say about the whole experience. And maybe even (gasp!) ask some of them for some feedback on her writing.

That was kind of a smart move. Present Mindy learned from the best. Then unpublished author Sophie Perinot (The Sister Queens) pointed out that I had no idea how to actually write a query. Fellow YA Query Hell residents R.C. Lewis (Stitching Snow, Hyperion, 2014) and MarcyKate Connolly (Monstrous, HarperCollins Children's, 2015) gave Present Mindy fantastic feedback on quite a few manuscripts, even convincing her after a few years (yes, really—Past Mindy does sometimes resurface) that a particular novel would actually read much better written in present tense. They were right, dammit.

Not only have fellow published authors helped me mold my writing, but other connections have opened pathways that wouldn't have existed otherwise. Knowing fellow FTWAer Matt Sinclair has given me an outlet for my short stories through the independent Elephant's Bookshelf Press. I've got the anchor short in Spring Fevers and a snarky little existentialist one-act in The Fall (psst ... watch for a new release in the seasonal anthologies series here in a few days).

But it goes past the printed word. The people that I've met through networking with fellow unpubbeds has given me a boost in so many ways—from a friend's husband who designed my site for a fraction of what someone else would have charged me, to a fellow author who wrote a teacher's guide for Not a Drop to Drink and the friend of a friend who then designed it, to the fantastic work that an amazingly talented unpubbed author has put into my trailer for Not a Drop to Drink ... all of these people have cut me a deal, helped me out just to be nice, or returned a favor.

That's the value of networking: never underestimating the worth of those standing next to you.

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, Not a Drop to Drink, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / HarperCollins September 24, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13, The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.

Tackling the Infamous Editorial Letter

by R.C. Lewis

You've queried for years with more than one manuscript, and finally signed with an agent. That agent submits to editors—maybe one round, maybe several, maybe moving on to another project—and finally sells your book to a publishing house.

You're going to be published! This is dream-come-true material, right?

Indeed. But to get there, you must survive the editorial letter.

(You may deal with this earlier if you have a highly editorial agent. Self-publishers may deal with it if you hire an editor to do something broader than a line-edit. Most of this applies pretty equally.)

First, what is an editorial letter? Pretty much what it sounds like. The editor discusses various aspects of your manuscript—some that they love, and some they think could be improved. I've heard of them running anywhere from one page to 20+, but many seem to hover in the double-digit range. Different editors will have their own approach. Mine broke it down into sections: Characters (with subsections for each major player), Romance, World Building, Plot Development, an overarching element specific to my story, the Aftermath, and (since mine is a retelling) connections to Snow White.

Our job as writers is to take this document and use it to help us revise our novel to beyond-brilliance. (Because we made sure it was already brilliant before it got in the editor's hands, right?)

Like everything else in writing, there's no one right way to tackle this hefty task, but here are my suggestions from my own experience.

• Don't Panic. When reading a lengthy edit letter, it's easy to have moments of, "Why did you even buy my book if you hate it so much?" The editor doesn't hate it. The editor loves it. But the editor wants it to be the very best novel it can be. That's a good thing.


• Bask in the Compliments ... Briefly. They may be out there, but I haven't yet heard of an edit letter that didn't have a decent amount of "I loved this, and here's why." Take a minute to enjoy that. It helps me get a feel for the good things that should be preserved as I revise. But then it's time to set that aside, roll up our sleeves, and get to work.


• Engage Your Voice (Part I). I opened a copy of my letter and inserted my own comments in a different color. Sometimes my editor posed questions, so I laid out the answer for myself. Sometimes I wrote down my first gut-reaction on how to address an issue. ("What if my characters did this? ... Or maybe this ... Oh, wait, THIS!") In a few rare instances, I disagreed about something. So I wrote down why, and tried to think of ways I could address the editor's concerns without making the change suggested.


• Engage Your Voice (Part II). Most editors will invite us to chat with them if we need clarification or want to bounce some ideas around. In my experience, they mean it. After doing my own commentary on the letter, I found I knew what I wanted to do with most of it, but had follow-up questions on a few points. ("If I changed it so Event A happened this way instead, would that resolve Issue X?") My editor was happy to brainstorm, and my anxiety went way down once I knew she liked my ideas.


• Two Heads are Better than One. Sometimes an editor will suggest changing something that we feel would be detrimental to the core of the story. If you're a people-pleaser like I am, this can be a very uncomfortable feeling. Before approaching your editor, it might help to discuss it with your agent or a trusted critique partner. They can help us voice our thoughts and reasoning in a professional manner so we don't result to a four-year-old's response—"No, you can't make me!" Or they might help us see what we're too emotionally invested in the story to realize.


• Break It Down to Bullets. You may find your own method for this, but I found it easier to digest the edit letter's suggestions when I boiled them to very brief To-Do-List form. ("Insert mention of Character A sooner." "Clear up consistency issues between X and Y.") Editors give a lot of reasoning in their letters, which I found great for helping me understand, but once I get it, I just need a note of what to do about it. A lot of my To-Do gets drawn from my inserted comments or the ideas I bounced off my editor.


• Remember that Elephants Get Eaten One Bite at a Time. This one is taking some practice for perfectionist-me, but I have to accept that I'm not going to get everything taken care of exactly right on the first pass. You'll have to find the way that works for you. Maybe one issue at a time, biggest to smallest. Maybe grouping similar issues and tackling them together. For me, I do a pass taking care of whatever jumps out most at me, then see what else I need to catch by going through my To-Do list more systematically. Sometimes things jump out at me, and I have an idea, but I don't feel like I want to handle it right then. That leads me to ...


• Leave Yourself Some Breadcrumbs. As I make my revision passes, I leave margin comments with ideas I'm not quite ready to incorporate and will deal with later. Often it's something I want to insert into the story, but I'm not yet sure where the best place for it is. I know I'm done when my To-Do list is all checked off and I don't have any comments left in my manuscript.

Remember that an editorial letter's job is to help you take something that's already pretty awesome and make it even better.

Do you have any tips or questions about dealing with an editorial letter? Share your thoughts in the comments.

R.C. Lewis teaches math to teenagers—sometimes in sign language, sometimes not—so whether she's a science geek or a bookworm depends on when you look. That may explain why her characters don't like to be pigeonholed. Coincidentally, R.C. enjoys reading about quantum physics and the identity issues of photons. You can find her on Twitter (@RC_Lewis) and at her website ... at least, you can when she's not in her revision cave.